


Asterisms

by muguetmuse



Category: Gintama
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Pining, Reflection, Stargazing, just a bit lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25149130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muguetmuse/pseuds/muguetmuse
Summary: A drunk Sakamoto stargazes with his Razor vice-captain and counts his lucky stars.
Relationships: Mutsu & Sakamoto Tatsuma, Mutsu/Sakamoto Tatsuma, SakaMutsu
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	Asterisms

**Author's Note:**

> Had this small bit in my drafts for a month or so, and then I was stargazing in my best friend's backyard and remembered I totally wrote a fic expressing how I felt at that moment.
> 
> Also–I like highlighting how Gintama men are Sad.

At the end of a long day, Sakamoto lies on the deck of the ship, face red with alcohol after another joyous business success with planet Scintilla’s top corporations. Signing the contracts to deliver their geothermal technology to Earth took a hard battle and gamble against competing companies, but with his vice-captain’s demonstration that the Kaientai were, in fact, capable of defending and delivering such precious goods, Scintilla’s people gave way to reason. 

Mutsu taking down their entire guard in five moves was _definitely_ reasonable (and scary!), but with some additional schmoozing, together, the Kaientai could go months without picking up shady deals for once. 

To say the least, Mutsu was the most pleased of all with today’s results. He could tell by the way she let loose tonight, and maybe he's learned to pay better attention, but it was the first time in a long time she looked that way. After Gran and a crew member, Inosuke, drank him under the table, he all but crawled his way to the deck, desperate for fresh air to stifle the bile from the ship's rocking and the sake.

“I came out here thinkin’ you’d need someone to make sure you didn’t fall off the deck hurling so much, but you’re just stargazing instead.” 

“Ahahaha, ahahah! So a drunk can’t enjoy beautiful things?” 

Once he tears his gaze away from the stellar white and blue lighting Scintilla’s evening, his cheek against his forearm, he’s staring at Mutsu. Hat off, hair undone from its usual low ponytail, a light blush from the excessive alcohol she’s trying so badly to fight off on her face. 

Shit, Mutsu, _attractive_? He must seriously be drunk. Sake could do terrible things to a man. 

“What a pain in the ass, saying strange things again." Her tone lacks its usual bite. "I’ll leave you to dream up your next scheme or whatever you please.” 

“I don’t know. Maybe I wanna bother my favorite vice-captain instead, ahahaha!” 

“Ya saying you lured me out here?” 

Another rough, loud laugh. He glances in her direction, and she’s rolling her eyes. Yeah, he’d do the same if he were in her position. So all he says after a long time is, “Maybe.” 

And yet she stays. 

No matter how crazy his antics get or what troubles the Kaientai get caught up, she stays. Right now, she’s probably just hanging around to make sure he isn’t throwing himself off the ship or causing a ruckus with the locals. A part of him is disappointed. 

Shit, he thinks again. Just what is he speculating about? 

“Mutsu, y’know, I haven’t seen you this relaxed in awhile, ahahaha! Finally happy I did somethin’ right? I know it’s been a long time coming and everything, but–”

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re better than what you tell yourself even if you are a thorn in my side." Mutsu quickly adds, "But don't let that get to your head. Business is unpredictable. It's senseless blaming yourself this time." 

Mutsu was always an abrasive, aloof person. Seldom did she offer anything close to comfort to him, but when she did, he lived for those sneak peeks of kindness rooted in her, a sign that they have a relationship deeper than strictly business partners running an intergalactic space company. But with the recent deficits, the Kaientai’s faced the past month, business ventures falling through at the last minute or sketchy humans and Amanto alike skipping out on deals, this rare moment from Mutsu doesn’t feel warranted. 

Sakamoto frowns. 

“Are you sure? Because my whole life, I kinda’ felt like a burden,” he says it out loud completely by accident, but once he hears it, he reserves no regrets. 

Only because there’s no point in holding back with his vice-captain. Right. A co-worker. His precious comrade.

To anyone else, even Kintoki, he wouldn’t dare to dwell on the thought for long–he might lose some face and a valuable friend if he ever shared any of his sentimentality to him. Although, maybe it would’ve been Kintoki who would understand this feeling the most. 

Still, he wasn’t the one who gave up in the middle of the war because it got too hard.

But then, if he never had disavowed who he was as the Dragon of Katsurahama, he would never have become the captain of his beloved Kaientai. 

And so, the words pour out of him like a cup overrun with too much sake, the kind he lavishes on at the cabaret when he convinces himself the pretty faces and no promises were enough. He leans further back into his outstretched arms, tracing lonesome, shining stars in the black sky with a lazy finger. The places they’ve been to together are innumerable, and despite his ill feelings, he wishes so badly to make sense of their adventures and transactions. Although this time they managed to clear all their debts with some profit leftover, the high of being an entrepreneur and having a crew to back him up...riding the waves, can only reach a certain height before crashing back down.

“I’m ta’ make ya’ feel that way, too. One day ya' won't like who I am and it'll all go away. I just hope you’ll bear with it for a little longer, Mutsu.”

Unlike life in Tosa or what it was like in the war, being with Mutsu and their precious crew, sometimes, it felt like the universe was for the taking. Other times, it felt like it would disappear, like a temporary satellite knocked out of an orbit it was never meant to embark on. He stretches his arm further to the stars directly overhead as he continues to draw easy shapes and lines. From beside him, he hears Mutsu settle beside him.

“I’ve always known who you really are,” she says, and by the way her voice sounds, she’s laying beside him, “an idiot. So just what are you getting at?” 

With her sharp response, Mutsu takes the nickname ‘Razor Lieutenant’ and runs away with it. Yet she raises her gaze to follow where his finger points toward in the sky, trusting wherever he aims is of significance. 

“Connecting the dots,” he finally answers plainly, and he can’t help but look at her, “of how I ended up ta’ be so lucky.”

He grins slightly. The insecure knot growing in his stomach unties, but his chest twinges with an unbidden ache. 

Strange, to go from wishing things would stay the same to set his heart on a small, seemingly undeserving change. 

If only she would look his way. Maybe then, that would make life feel more than enough. 

For now, he would count the stars–the places they’ve been to together, the _space_ they’ve traversed and taken up together–and like her, look forward to the next planet, where else they might end up.


End file.
